The Pittsburgh Press (May 4, 1943)
Ferguson: ‘Time to abdicate’
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
It was the male, I believe, who first announced himself made in the image of God. Upon that assumption and because of the pleasant belief, man has assumed dominion over every living thing – a rare privilege as well as a heavy responsibility. And from a general view of conditions, he’s been a disgraceful flop. It’s time for him to abdicate.
While we agree that men have made a noble stagger at intervals, they have succeeded only in getting the world into a hopeless mess. As managers, executives and leaders in human affairs, they are consistently chuckle-headed. On every side, the facts prove it.
Their politics is foul with graft. Their international business is conducted with intrigue. They seem incapable of comprehending the earth as a planet belonging to all, where the inhabitants can live together in amity. Instead, they build high walls about themselves, spending their substance to defend these imaginary and senseless boundaries.
While they have been at the work of managing such affairs since the dawn of time, they never learn by experience, and the year 1943 finds them engaged almost wholly with destruction. They are bending every energy to insult human dignity, demolish freedom and bring death and ruin.
They mastered the seas – and have lined them with dynamite bombs. They control the air, and from it threaten pestilence and havoc. They command the earth and it is scarred with trenches and big guns, its resources looted, its substances wasted upon war.
I say, let them abdicate their leadership in favor of women, who are impractical, inexperienced, ignorant and different, but who could certainly do better because it would be impossible to do worse.
